What else can I do?

Greenwellies_2

Bunnie1982 wrote:

Food and Houseshopping - How many people are you shopping for, some excellent money saving ideas on the Old Style Board. We can shop for 2 of us for less than £20 a week.

Hi, can you give me an example of your weekly shopping list?

Thanks

GW

sweetmoneysaver

Greenwellies wrote:

Could you put the ISBN on here, so that I can search for them.

Thanks.

I have even brought the Paul McKenna confidence book, but I think that was pushing it.

GW

Put the Amazon listings below but has ISBN number on the page

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0749443561/qid=1145822243/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_3_1/026-4247707-0123613


http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0706376129/qid%3D1145823481/026-4247707-0123613

Greenwellies_2

fannyadams wrote:

I also noticed your overdraft is costing you moeny - Alliance & Leicester give you a free overdraft for 12 months I htink it is and you can get £50 back too if you sign up for their current account.

My OD on my student account is 0% but on my current account they do charge, but it is only less than £2. However, with creaping further into this, it will go up - hence the £5.

I doubt that I will be able to secure a OD in this situation.

Thanks

GW

lynzpower

GW,

ONe of the things we've done partly for enviromental reasons is we have started to have at least one vegetarian meal per week. Sometimes its bought ( linda mccartney sausages eg) sometimes a chick pea curry or veggie lasagne.

Some of the things we have is
homemade pizza, garlic bread & wedges
lasagnes
roast dinners
bangers & mash
grilled pork/ rice/ veg/ pepper sauce
curry & rice
tonight, turkey ( cheaper than chicken) chowmein

My sig budget includes all toiletries, cleaning stuff, lunches for work, drinks, and sometimes stuff like blank cds, or household bits ( new mop head etc)

Lunches, beans on granary toast, sandwiches, homemade soups. all taken into work with crisps/ biscuits/ homemade cakes etc.

Greenwellies_2

sweetmoneysaver wrote:

Put the Amazon listings below but has ISBN number on the page

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0749443561/qid=1145822243/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_3_1/026-4247707-0123613


http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0706376129/qid%3D1145823481/026-4247707-0123613

Thanks!

I hope I can get them cheaply / from the library



GW

Greenwellies_2

sweetmoneysaver wrote:

I am concerned that your mortgage is interest only at the moment - this should only be used as a short term gap as eventually it will have to be paid. I know that you can't at the moment but make a mental note to sort things when you can.

How are are the kids? Is there any way that you can suggest a cut in pocket money or get them to do a paper round instead.

Agree a budget with friends and family for Christmas and Birthdays. I assume that your close friends and family will know of your husband's work situation. Homemade gifts could be another option.

The food bill is the obvious quick win here. Try shopping every 2-3 days maybe rather than weekly. Also do a weekly menu so you stick to only what you need. Make large batches of things so that you can freeze things. That way you will not be tempted to buy other meals because it looks like there is nothing in the fridge.

Make sure you really want the winter holiday.

Good luck with everything, I hope things improve.

Sorry as you can gather I am catching up and taking all this in.
We do have a budget for Christmas, £10 for an adult. I've tried to introduce HM gifts but they're not really appreciated. My main reason at the time was because I believe that Christmas is too commercialised.

I do menu plan and tend to stick to that as my shopping list. I did think that it helped me reduce what I was spending, but I think that having to spend £75 to get free delivery was costing me more

The winter holiday (that sounds really posh!!) we've hired a cottage for 14 of us so that we can spend christmas day together, rather than go to a restaurant and pay ave £75 per head, plus drinks. (it's in the UK)

Greenwellies_2

lynzpower wrote:

GW,

ONe of the things we've done partly for enviromental reasons is we have started to have at least one vegetarian meal per week. Sometimes its bought ( linda mccartney sausages eg) sometimes a chick pea curry or veggie lasagne.

Some of the things we have is
homemade pizza, garlic bread & wedges
lasagnes
roast dinners
bangers & mash
grilled pork/ rice/ veg/ pepper sauce
curry & rice
tonight, turkey ( cheaper than chicken) chowmein

My sig budget includes all toiletries, cleaning stuff, lunches for work, drinks, and sometimes stuff like blank cds, or household bits ( new mop head etc)

Lunches, beans on granary toast, sandwiches, homemade soups. all taken into work with crisps/ biscuits/ homemade cakes etc.

Thanks for the ideas. TBH we also tend to have a veggie meal or two if I can get away with it. I can make sweet potatoe curry without anyone noticing it's not meat!

LOL

GW

Spendless

You've mentioned 4 adults in the family? are they older teenage children? Could they help, maybe by getting jobs/paper rounds so you could knock pocket money off your list of out-goings.

The winter holiday-are you paying the whole cost for the 14 of you to go, is there no contribution from the other parties?

sweetmoneysaver

As the posts have gone on, it has become clearer what each item is. Can your husband help with getting the shopping rather than getting it delivered? I know you have a problem with carrying, probably hence the deliveries. Going every couple of days and maybe going to the butchers and greengrocers etc. separately may help cut the costs.

Greenwellies_2

Spendless wrote:

You've mentioned 4 adults in the family? are they older teenage children? Could they help, maybe by getting jobs/paper rounds so you could knock pocket money off your list of out-goings.

The winter holiday-are you paying the whole cost for the 14 of you to go, is there no contribution from the other parties?

The eldest does do a paper round, and he's a saver so he has a couple of hundred in his bank. My other teenager can't get a paper round as there isn't one avaliable (and he can be quite lazy when told what to do - Hormones!)

As for the holiday, 4 families including food = £400 each family. (for a week, including Christmas dinner and wine)

GW